Framed Film Festival – Barbican

I have some very exciting news! My films will be screened at the Framed Film Festival for children at the Barbican on 21 November. Three shorts will be shown – including my new film The Tie – as well as two episodes of 64 Zoo Lane. The screening is entitled ‘Animal Magic with animator An Vrombaut’ and is the first such screening dedicated solely to my work. There will be wolves, whales, kitten, tigers, elephants – and giraffes of course!

The Tie – Special Mention at Berlinale Generation 2015 and Amsterdam Young Audience Award at KLIK! 2015

Little Wolf – my graduation film from the RCA

When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Tiger – animated short

64 Zoo Lane

I will be at the screening to talk about my animal creations, and during the rest of the day I will be in the cinema foyer to sign books and run a free ‘animal-ears’ workshop. I will be joined by artist Shelly Wain who is designing hats based on some of the other films showing at the festival.

Beale Park 64 Zoo Lane book event pictures

On Saturday 20th July I visited Beale Park in Berkshire for the launch of the re-issued 64 Zoo lane books. Beale Park is a wildlife park on the banks of the river Thames. It’s home to lots of wonderful creatures including alpacas, meerkats, owls, capybaras and this feathered beauty:

And last but not least, I was presented with a gift from Beale Park: sponsorship of a capybara (my 2nd favourite animal after giraffes).

Here she is: Peggy-Sue the Capybara

Many thanks to Nellie, Beale Park, Wallingford Bookshop, Hodder Children’s books and everyone else who helped to make it a wonderful day!

64 Zoo Lane book launch at Beale Park- Saturday 20th July

A giraffe among the alpacas? Yes, on Saturday 20th July Georgina the Giraffe from 64 Zoo Lane will be visiting picturesque Beale Park near Pangbourne on the banks of the river Thames in Berkshire .

Come and meet the creator of 64 Zoo Lane -that’s me- and listen to 64 Zoo Lane stories at 11:00 am, 12:30 pm, 2 pm and 3:30 pm. Each reading will be followed by a drawing demonstration and craft activities. We’ll even be making a giraffe who’s incredibly tallllllllllllll. Readings and activities are included in the park admission fee. The Wallingford Bookshop will bring 64 Zoo Lane books to sell. I’ll bring my special signing pen and giraffe ears along for the occasion!

Beale Park makes a great day out for all the family with its animals, gardens, play and activities. For information including admission prices and directions visit www.bealepark.co.uk or email or email nell@bealepark.co.uk.

There are lots of animals to discover. Here are some of my favourites:

And finally, I couldn’t resist drawing a rotund rodent for the occasion. So here she is: Carmen the Capybara, 64 Zoo Lane style. She’s rather charming, don’t you think?

The 64 Zoo Lane picture books are published by Hodder Children’s Books.

A few favourite animal films

In my last blog post I wrote about the traditional animal stories which inspired me to create 64 Zoo Lane. It is not just books that influenced me though…

Here are a few of my favourite films and TV programmes featuring animals. Some are very well-known and others obscure. First, two animated shorts I was introduced to when I was a student:

Caroline Leaf ‘s tragic ‘The Owl who married a Goose’. This film was animated using sand on glass.

Yuri Norstein’s atmospheric ‘Hedgehog in the Fog’. This is a slow, absorbing film, a simple tale masterly told. I also love Norstein’s ‘Tale of Tales’ which features a wolf cub.

The Jungle Book is one of my all-time favourite Disney features. This is the Kaa hypnosis scene.

The Lion King was released at around the same time I started work on the pilot episode of 64 Zoo Lane. Suddenly, savannah animals were ‘in’. This is one of the few films I have seen three times on the big screen. My daughter likes to do a ‘Simba’ with our geriatric cat. This involves holding the cat aloft while singing “Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala”.

And finally, a Dutch language clip of a pre-school TV programme I used to watch every evening as a young child in Belgium: De Fabeltjeskrant ‘The Fables Times’.

There is no doubt this programme influenced me. The storytelling format of fables is similar to that of 64 Zoo Lane. However, I was not my favourite programme when I was a child; that honour must go to Colargol. And as an adult I still feel ambiguous about De Fabeltjeskrant; I find the morals rather overpowering.

64 Zoo Lane- A sort-of-anniversary

64 Zoo Lane turns 20 this month. TWENTY? Well yes, sort of …

Lucy and her menagerie have been on TV since 2000 – so that’s just over 13 years. However, I created the concept seven years earlier in 1993 when I was a student at the Royal College of Art. I had just completed my graduation Little Wolf (music by Rowland Lee who went on to write the music for 64 Zoo Lane). I knew I wanted make children’s TV, so I started thinking of an idea for an animated series…

There were two things I was sure of from the start:

Firstly, my TV series would have animals in it. I grew up in a household with lots of pets, so animals are what I enjoy drawing the most. Here’s a drawing of a tortoise I did when I was five. Can you see the resemblance with Toby from 64 Zoo Lane?

And secondly, this series had be something that would really engage me . The idea of doing 26 episodes with the same characters and settings terrified me slightly. What if I got bored after episode number 3? I needed to come up with a concept that would keep me captivated , a format I could expand on… So I decided to include lots of animal characters that live in different environments.

A zoo was the first thing that came to my mind. I took inspiration from Antwerp zoo in Belgium which I visited regularly as a child. It’s in the middle of the city right next to the central railway station.

Then I got the idea of a girl living next door at number 64. Each night Lucy would make a clandestine visit to the zoo via the long neck of Georgina the giraffe and one of the animals would tell her a bed time story.

I read Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories before moving on to Inuit raven legends, the traditional African tales of Anansi the Spider and the mischief maker Nogwaja the Hare and the Igbo story of the flying tortoise.